We, of the Jewish Defense League of Second Life, the Jewish people and its friends among the world, still stand together in shock over the horrific massacre of six holy Jews in the Chabad House of Mumbai. Therefore this post, is a tribute to those holy martyrs. May G-d avenge their blood and bring us the final geula (redemption).

Rabbi Holtzberg HY”D about his work in Mumbai, India

Just as all Jews or sane people in general, I too was and still am stunned since first hearing that Islamic terrorists had taken over the Mumbai Chabad house. I sat, literally for days – together with Jews from all around the world – glued to the news and the internet, saying tehilim and davening in between, in the hope to get some good news about the Mumbai kedoshim who died al kiddush Hashem (as a sanctificaton of G-ds name). They died, just because they were Jewish. These holy martyrs; Chassidic, non-Chassidic, religious and even not religious. The difference didn’t matter to the terrorists. Yes, they were holy Jews.

Perhaps, one of the only good things out of this tragedy was the miracle of little Moishele’s survival. The two year old son of Rabbi Gavriel and Rebbetzin Rivka Holtzberg HY”D was heroically saved by his nanny Sandra Samuel (may G-d grant her a long and good life and award her greatly in the next world).

Moshe – whose second birthday was last Shabbos, the day after the siege of the Chabad house – has no parents anymore. No ‘abba’ or ‘ima’ to take care of him. And so, it was painful to see how the little boy cried for his ‘abba’ and ‘ima’ today at the memorial for his parents, not yet realizing that they aren’t here anymore. Their holy neshomes (souls) are now with the Ribono Shel Olom.

May G-d always guard and protect Moishie ‘the Mumbai miracle’ just as He did last week. And may he grow up to be as great as his parents, of blessed memory, were.
‘Answer to terror’ by Chabad:

You can help in order for these holy souls to be elevated, commit yourself to a mitzvah (or more mitzvos)! Please click, here.

Fund to assist family of Mumbai victim:A fund has been established to assist the family of Bentzion Kruman [The media has been spelling it Chroman]. The fund is endorsed by Rabi Aron Twerski and others.

Growing Menace of Digital Terrorism and Hate Exposed in New SWC Interactive Report

Digital Terrorism and Hate 2007 is the Simon Wiesenthal Centerâ€™s newly released ninth annual, interactive report exposing terrorism and hate on the Internet. Compiled by Center researchers, the 2007 edition is culled from close to 7,000 problematic websites, blogs, newsgroups, YouTubeTM and other on-demand video sites. Key sections of Digital Terrorism are available in English, French and Spanish.

Highlights include powerful terrorist videos that recruit young people into the horrific culture of death and Hate on Demand — two flash movies tracing the evolution of how hate and terror groups have manipulated and leveraged the web to promote their agendas.

The Wiesenthal Center is distributing this unique, timely and impactful interactive report to government leaders, elected officials, law enforcement, anti-terrorist agencies, community and web activists, and the media.

I just read an article on Arutz Sheva about the weakening of Jewish roots in the world Jewry. While the Israeli Jewry feels more Jewish. This is an perfect example of how chutz l’aretz is affecting us. We can sit in shul whole day, we can eat kosher and live in Brooklyn, BoroPark, or wherever we have our communities. Yes, we can even have our own community at SL, but it’s no Eretz Yisroel. Our soul, the Jewish soul is yearning for it’s return to Eretz Yisroel. We even have a kotel and some Zionist organisations at SL… And all of this is because of the yearning of our soul.

So… what are we waiting for? “We see that the Jewish attachment of millions of Jews around the world is getting weaker,” Jewish Agency chief Ze’ev Bielski said Thursday at the Ruppin Conference for Immigration and Social Integration. “In the past, every Jew [sic] spoke Hebrew, but today many Jews prefer to have their children study physics instead of Hebrew, so that they will be able to go to university.”

So.. since we cannot fit in the goyische society less we assimilate. That left us with only one option, and a Torah option! Make aliyah, leave, go, emigrate to Israel. As you know we a chazon, a ‘vision’ of shivat Zion. Every day we pray three times daily “Va techazena einenu b’shuvcha L’zion” (May our eyes behold thy return to Zion). With Pesach we utter the joyfull wish of “L’shana habo b’yerushalayim!” – next in Jerusalem. But why do so many of us, stay in chutz l’aretz? The Jew, whose sojourn in an exile two milenia old as corrupted and perverted the most basic of real Jewish values. Bearded and piously payotic, clean shaven and woolly skullcapped, knittedyarmulked they all join with all the others in the ecumenical worship of the Golden Calf of our times: The Golden Exile.

Go up to the Land concerning which they shed hot tears every Tisha B’Av, anniversary of the national day of national mourning? Actually uproot themselves from the Exile and go dwell in the Zion and Jerusalem they piously seek every year, “next year?”

But the chandeliers and the expensive shaitel wig and the quicksand, which is the good life are far more powerful than commandments.

“For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the Land which the L-rd your G-d giveth you, and you shall possess it and dwell therein…” Deuteronomy 11.

“And they scorned the desirable land…” Psalm 106

And so they invent all kinds of rationales, all cloaked in a tallis that is all blue. “Israel is also Exile…” “This is not the beginning of the redemption, merely the footsteps of Moshiach…”

Can one look at a state that rises miraculously after two millennia and watch an ingathering of exiles from a hundred lands and not see in this the beginning of the great vision and redemption? Regardless of the sins and abominations in the land? No, that which we do not wish to do, we do not. But first, we must stamp the swine with the halachic label of kosher…

Nothing moves the “religious…” they have been inordinately twisted and corrupted by twenty centuries of abnormality. One simply cannot live as a minority for twenty centuries, two thousand years, supping at other’s tables, pleading for a smile, a tolerant act, love, and remain normal. One cannot live in a stranger’s home and remain stable. A minority must, of necessity, inherit insecurities, complexes, fear, and instability. A minority must, of necessity, be exposed to and influenced by the majority culture that insidiously enters, corrupts, changes, lays its permanent hand on Judaism, so that the Jew assumes the Gentile value and assumes too, that it is Jewish.”

But on the other hand in Israel, a recent poll shows that half of Israelis feel they are Jewish first, and 45% says they are Israeli first. The remaining 5% told the pollsters – of the Mutagim Polling Institute, in honor of Israel‘s 59th Independence Day – that neither title represented them. The poll found that 82% of those who are religious (92% of Hareidi-religious) and 64% percent of those who said they were right-wing, said they were more Jewish than Israeli. On the other hand, 72% of secular Israelis said they were more Israeli. These numbers says great deal about the goyische influence of chutz l’aretz on the Jewish people. We get influenced by the goyischkeit, and the only way to avoid this, is to make Aliyah and live in a Jewish state.

New immigrants to Israel also feel more Jewish. The numbers in a recent Ruppin Academic Center survey that nearly 85% of Ethiopian olim (immigrants), 80% of those who came from the former Soviet Union, and a bit more than 60% of Western olim characterize themselves as more Jewish than Israeli.